By IANS,
New Delhi : The Left parties Tuesday issued an appeal asking people to support their alternative platform against the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to defend secularism and protect national sovereignty.
In a joint appeal, the four Left parties — the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), the Communist Party of India (CPI), the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) and the Froward Bloc — said they had to be strengthened to firmly defend secularism, to protect national sovereignty and to develop a self-reliant and balanced economic path.
“If social justice is to be rendered for the working people, dalits, adivasis, women, minorities and all oppressed sections of society, if the country is to emerge with a strong and independent foreign policy, the Left has to be strengthened,” it said.
The Left party leaders also criticised Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for calling them a negative force.
CPI general secretary A.B. Bardhan said most of the inputs in the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) and other prestigious bills of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) were given by the Left when it supported the government.
“The prime minister will have to admit it,” Bardhan told reporters while issuing the appeal with general secretaries of other Left parties.
CPI-M general secretary Prakash Karat said the Left parties’ effort was to see that the UPA worked for the people.
During the past five years, the Left parties have played a consistent role in defence of secularism and the economic interests of the people, to protect national sovereignty and to oppose any strategic link up with US imperialism, the appeal stated.